It is often desirable to have a stone masonry or paving covering with a visually appealing pattern. It is further desirable to vary this pattern so as to create one which is, or seems to be, irregular or “random” to the viewer.
Such irregular patterns are known in the art. They can be created by skilled masons or stoneworkers who can cut bricks, stones, or rocks into any shape and lay them upon the ground with no predetermined logic. Such an irregular pattern may require significant time and labor to produce, and is thus not suitable for all installations.
In the related fields of ceramics and hardwood flooring, there is a trend to create flooring out of rectangular tiles or planks of different sizes, and to arrange such tiles or planks to form a random floor pattern.
There is a need in the landscaping industry for paving units which would provide a similar effect. It would be desirable to recreate such random patterns for outside flooring, such as with cement or concrete-based paving units. Long and narrow paving units made of concrete-based material are not well-adapted for landscaping, since they lack flexural strength and resistance to heavy loads. Both commercial and consumer paving units must comply with standards specifying the load charge the units must be able to withstand, and the flexural strength they must have. In order to comply with such standards, current solutions, such as plank pavers, are offered in thicker pavers, and are thus more expensive. Combining individual plank pavers of different widths and lengths is often not possible or too complex, since they come in different thicknesses. The longer and narrower pavers are typically thicker than wider and/or shorter pavers, since the long and narrow pavers must be able to provide the same flexural strength capacities than shorter and/or wider pavers, and this can only be achieved by increasing their thickness.
There is thus a need to provide a paving solution for forming a paved surface which appears to be made of several distinct rectangular paving units of different lengths. It would also be desirable that the joints between the paving units appear to be located randomly over the paved surface.
Finally, it would be desirable to provide a paving or masonry unit which would allow people with limited or no masonry skills to create a suitably irregular floor pattern from masonry units that could be manufactured quickly and in abundance, easily transported, and assembled without difficulty.